Being asked to spread a word, I would like to share an interesting opportunity. It is for all colleagues potters who would like to participate in teapot exhibition on Taiwan. Both functional and sculptural entries are accepted, the event is hold during October 2016 in Ceramic Museum in Yingge

( for all teaware lovers: Yingge is one of the "have to see" places on Taiwan !!)

For all details, please visit this page. If you would like to participate and you will have any troubles with your entry, contact me at keramikakcajiATgmail.com, I will try to help!

I was happy to participate on this event during 2014. Bellow you can see few pictures from the opening ceremony day from October 2014...

Big thanks to dear friend TheJadeLeaf for taking those pictures for me there!

Thursday, February 11, 2016

This is another contribution to long lasting discussion on using charcoal fire as traditional source of heat for boiling tea water. Main points were probably already said in my old articles on this blog, but there are few new things I would like to share. For those who haven't had a chance to read the original texts, you can follow these links:

I would like to start with a suggestion. I would like recommend to anyone who is using charcoal fire, or is thinking about going to this direction, readIssue 43, August 2015 of Global Tea Hut magazine. Main topic of the August issue was Fire, "The Teacher of Tea" There are many things to think about, to try, many interesting information and teachings. Of course, I would also strongly recommend to go and subscribe. It is really nice to have such magazine in hands every month. For many reasons. The community of supporters is growing and the magazine is growing with it. If you have not subscribe yet, or you missed some older issues, than you can read past issues online and for free (with some small and intelligible delay).

The Magazine traveled a big journey since I recieved it for the first time...

Another thing, which can make whole experience much easier for you, charcoal devotee are any informations where to source good, high quality charcoal. I have not colected any long list yet, good charcoal is not easy to find these days. ( I welcome any tips for all reading this blog in the comments section !!!). But at least, I can share two sources of good charcoal right now:

- If the Big Apple is not across an ocean, you might want to try original Japanese Binchotan charcoal from Korin. It is not cheap but the quality is really high, they have different grades and styles and if you don't have to pay an expensive shipping, then it is definitely worth to try.

This how Binchotan Aramaru looks at our porch. It is much heavier and more dense then any charcoal I had before...

- And now good news for us, European. There is good quality accessible charcoal around! Thanks to good friend, I get a chance to try this new charcoal and fall in love instantly. Made in Austria, I can almost call it local (...local supermarket as the second option is much less local ) It si family business making charcoal in tradition way. They are even applicants to become UNESCO heritage with their way of burning charcoal. Here iscool video about the procces .

Austrian and the left, Japanesse on the right...

I am not going to give you a long talk about it, but compare to all other stuff I could buy around, this wins in all requiements. Cleaner, smokeless (if dry!), nicer, last longer. The only "flaw" is that it is not so easy to light up compared to softwood charcoal from supermarket. It needs more attention, but I get use to it and I am never going back. If you are interested here are their products
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Last thing I would like to share today is my shift in the whole "how to light up" question. Last year I started experimenting with charcoal lighters. Our kitchen electric glass stove does not like do this dirty work so much...And later I actually found out that, when you use the right charcoal lighter in the right way, it works even better. Of course, we are not going to use any heavy-chemical lighters for our tea fire. But still, when using charcoal lighter, do it outside - charcoal, before it is on fire, smokes. Sometimes a lot (remember: cleaner lighter and drier charcoal means less smoke!)

You can see three different charcoal lighters here. The middle man is the worst one, wood chips mixed with a lot of paraffin. It works but does not light so well and smoke is heavier. The right side one would be my second choice (even that looks really cool), and the left one is my favorite. Very fine mixture of wood chips, paper and a bit of paraffin.

Here you can see few pictures from yesterday fire party. I use my stopwatch to see how much time I actually usually need...

After two-three minutes I start to carefully load charcoal around the fire...

...filling the whole basket. Pay attention to how you compose the pile, think about the fire...

...a couple of minutes it seems that I put out the fire, but after another minute smoke starts to show...

After ten more minutes fire is visible and smoke is almost down. It is better to wait few more minutes before you move it inside...

Whole lighting up took me around 16min, but I was attending it just for few minutes on the start. I have not tried to light up the Binchotan this way yet. And as it is much harder-dense charcoal, it can be problem. I will try and share later on...

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Today I decided to open up something more serious, serious in terms of quality and depth. Fusion of heart touching poetry and good tea. It is time forThe Last Thoughts...

Nice chunk of this expensive tea was generosly given to me by TwoDog in Autumn 2014. These are the last leaves, ready to be brewed and drinked. Ready to make happy all of us who sits around our tea table today...

Wrapper have lead us to many dicussions, about tea threes and tea people, Dylan and Woody Guthrie, music and poetry, live and dead, about the life. Thank you TwoDog for that...

.. I can imagine I will find you both one day in GuaFenZhai in sundown...

Monday, January 4, 2016

spoiler note before you start the reading: all pictures here are from my November trip to WuYi and Yixing, where I went with my dear friends from Global Tea Hut

As many others tea senior blogs , also this one is slow and pretty quiet for some time now. Maybe all have been said in the vast ocean of teablogs. Or maybe people just drink more and talk less. As for me, I personally prefer tea silence over tea talk more and more...

YanCha in bloom...smell of heaven!

But! Tea is about community, sharing and join-joy as well....

So we talk
and share
and lough
and argue and engage in trifling tea-fights all the time. But just less on blogs, I guess other social media rule the world these days....

Actually, tea table is my favorite social medium of all times! What is yours?

Anyway, back to this Pots and Tea blog. I honestly do not want to give this space up (yet). I like the idea of more stable online space where I can share my "pots and tea" stories. Just to make it work in my recent live schedule, some changes have to be done...

First of all, my blog post, from now on, will be shorter but more frequent. My wish is to post here one, two pictures every week. Some kind of "the best weekly", from what happened in our studio, new teaware from our kiln or interesting teas from our tea cabinet. Tea-teaware travels, exhibitions and so on...

The First Yixing pot in progress...

Yes, Dragon Kiln! Where magic happens...

Then there is our Ten Gems Collection...my "ten gems of ten kilns" project was really fun and I can not emphasize enough how I appreciated your support. It was kind of cool "game", there was always live discusions about each new addition to the collection. It helped me to be focused on refining skills with every firing and and still gives me so important feedback on my own past work. But I am not able to keep it running anymore and the collection was not updated for a year now. So lets change it!

"Ten Gems of Ten Kilns" project is closed now! I send a notification email to all who reserved pieces from that selection and I will send those pieces over with good vibes...

Gem Number Twenty Six, enjoying view at a valley in the WuYiShan...

But I still would like to put aside "the best" of each firing. For exhibition reasons or future hindsights. However, all that without posting that regularly with no pressure when and how to share it with others. First piece to that New Gem Collection is already aside and I will be happy to share it with you. Sooooo....ooon

And finally ourPots and Tea Club- well, there is not many changes in this chapter. Just that we are still tuning that up. But it is already working (almost) smoothly (especially when we consider that it is run by two potters and not by group of IT experts) And it is a lot of fun. And ton of extra "not clay" work. But we receive a lot of support which is more then rewarding. Thanks for that! If you are not in yet, just send me an email to keramikakcajiATgmail.com and we will explain all in details directly.